"I don't know why it would have counted as the wrong answer."

There was plenty of heartbreak last week when Thomas Hurley III, a Connecticut eighth-grader, correctly answered the Final Jeopardy question on a Kids Week episode of "Jeopardy!" only to have it disqualified because of a misspelling. And while last week the boy seemed okay with it, now he's speaking out and saying he was "cheated."

Hurley, 12, correctly answered a question about the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln.

But he spelled it "emanciptation" and was ruled out by host Alex Trebec:

"I was pretty upset that I was cheated out of the final `Jeopardy!' question. It was just a spelling error,'' he told The News-Times of Danbury.

"It's just upsetting to have lost that way. I don't know why it would have counted as the wrong answer," he added.

Thomas Hurley, whose answer on the Kids Week version of 'Jeopardy!' was disqualified because of a misspelling. (Source: YouTube)

Still, Hurley only wagered $3,000 of his $9,600 in winnings and a correct answer would not have affected the show's outcome: He came in second after losing to a rival who amassed $66,000 and got the answer right.

Producers of Jeopardy! said in an email to the Associated Press that the show would penalize other players if it credited a contestant's incorrect response.

But many have sided with the boy.

"It didn't change the nature of the answer, as it would in say `dessert vs. desert' since we all knew what the kid was trying to say," Susan Jackson told the News Times. "'Jeopardy!' has never really discounted answers because of adults' misspellings."